A Blog about different types of living beings ranging from exotic animals & interesting creatures to rare insects, naughty reptiles and large mammals, etc. - along with anything else that relates to nature, gardening...

Sunday, May 5, 2013

Galapagos 'Lava Lizards' Fighting

Well, I tried to find some good fighting videos of these Lava lizards from Galapagos, but only found a few lame videos on YouTube albeit I didn't spend a lot of time looking. I read in the past how they "fight furiously" with their tail, although I didn't see anything furious about it, when searching for videos for this post, today. Anyway, these small land iguanas are interesting, nonetheless.

Microlophus is a genus of Tropidurid lizards. There are 22 recognized species in the genus, and 9 of these are restricted to the Galápagos Islands, commonly known as lava lizards.

The male lava lizard is larger than the female and they look distinctly different. The overall color patterns are different, and females have bright red skin under their throats. The males are territorial and will protect their territories from other males. Now here is something amusing that I recently read about them: "Galapagos Lava Lizards will threaten intruders by doing push-ups," in front of them, I suppose... Ha-ha! I actually found a video of this online, but it was only 3 seconds long, so I'm not going to bother posting it here. Anyway, the diet for these lizards is not very complex. Lava lizards are omnivores and eat grasshoppers, ants, moths, flies, beetles, spiders, and some plants. They are eaten by snakes, hawks, mockingbirds, centipedes, and herons. They have the ability to loose their tail while being attacked, as to distract their predator with a detached wriggling tail as they flee in terror. Of course, they also have the ability to camouflage their selves, which also helps them survive.

Well, like I said before, I was hoping to find some good fighting videos of these lava lizards, but my quick search only turned up the 3 short videos below:

[Videos are no longer available]

Oh, if you are more interested in watching a video about the Galapagos area, check out the vid below:
[Evidently, none of the freakin' videos on this post work; sorry...]